


Fire Up the Barbie

by Chash



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 12:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11185185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: Clarke is not and never has been someone who grills. Neither are any of her friends. But they have a new house, a new grill, and a weirdly over-invested landlord.So apparently they need someone to grill for them.





	Fire Up the Barbie

**Author's Note:**

> [This post](http://ponyregrets.tumblr.com/post/161412365944/drunp-this-is-peak-craigslist) was made for Bellamy Blake and we all know it.

"So, does anyone actually know how to grill?"

It's Jasper who poses the question, but Clarke knows they're all thinking it. With Raven moving to town for grad school, Monty recently out of a relationship, and Jasper and Clarke's leases expiring at around the same time, it had only made sense to get a place together. With four of them, they could afford an actual _house_ a little ways out of the city, and Clarke is unreservedly thrilled about it.

But the landlord, a cool if intense guy named Roan, had been incredibly, kind of scarily psyched about their having a _grill_ in the back. It was one of the selling points of the property for him, more than the size of the bedrooms or the proximity to public transportation. The most important thing was that it came with a grill, because apparently Roan is all about that life.

"I've never grilled anything on purpose," says Monty. "Just, you know. Accidentally lighting something on fire."

"Yeah, I bet I could make a pretty badass fireball on there," says Raven. "Not to cook meat or anything," she adds, as if there was even a remote possibility anyone thought she might know how to make a fireball for any purpose other than recreation.

Clarke's the one who says, "My dad used to grill. I always kind of think of it as a dad thing."

"Wow, gender essentialism much?" Monty teases, and Clarke smiles.

"Women can be dads too, Monty. It's a state of mind."

"Yeah, that's definitely true," says Jasper. "Clarke is totally our dad friend."

"Thanks. Does that mean I'm the one who's going to learn to use the grill?"

"I don't know if you're enough of a dad friend for it to overcome your natural suckiness at cooking," says Monty. "Like--is the power of dad in you stronger than the power of Clarke? I don't think so."

"I think that's probably good," says Clarke. "I don't want my inner dadness to consume me."

"So, we're just not going to use the grill and pretend we did, right?" Monty asks. "We're all on the same page here."

"Yeah," says Clarke. She shrugs. "It's not like he's going to ask about it, right?"

*

"It's like you've never seen a horror movie," Monty grumbles.

They've been living in the new house for a month, and the weather is finally starting to feel like summer. If there is a perfect time for grilling, this is it. It hadn't occurred to Clarke, but she and Monty were out shopping for the week and ran into Roan in the meat section. Of course, they had to chat with him, and Clarke really had thought they could get away without any mention of the grill, because, honestly, who asks strangers if they've been grilling?

But of course he asked, and when she and Monty equivocated, he took it to mean they needed help finding some good meat, and now they have a pile of raw meat and no idea what to do with it.

"You never say anything like _what's the worst that can happen_?" Monty goes on. "You jinxed our grill!"

"How is it _my_ fault that our landlord has a grill obsession?" she asks. "That's not normal."

He sighs. "No, you're right. That's a weird level of investment in our grill I didn't see coming."

"Maybe we should just tell him we don't know how to grill and ask him to come over," she offers.

"No way," Monty says, instantly. "He's like Damon Gant, but with grilling instead of swimming. If we tell him we don't know what to do with the meat, he's going to stare at us for an uncomfortably long time and then reveal that he wants to murder us. Spoilers for a video game you've never played," he adds.

"Yeah, that wasn't really a helpful comparison for me." She makes a face. "Do you think we can resell the meat on craigslist or something? People must go on craigslist for meat, right? They go on craigslist for everything."

It's meant as a joke, but Monty lights up like a Christmas tree. "That's it! You're a genius."

"You want to start reselling meat on craigslist?" He and Jasper have had some weird money-making schemes in their lives, but this one does not seem even a little realistic. The best they can hope for is recouping their losses.

"No, we can just go on craigslist and find someone to grill for us. I bet there's some weird empty-nesting dad who wants to come out and cook for a bunch of kids if we just do, you know, dad stuff with him."

"If you put up a post on craigslist asking someone to come over and do dad stuff with you, you're going to get no one but fetishists, murderers, and people who think we want to murder them."

"That's why we screen them," says Monty, attention already on his phone. "Next Sunday, you think? We can freeze the meat until then."

Clarke opens and closes her mouth a couple times, but she's known Monty for six years now, and she knows how he is. He has a faith in the power of the internet as a force for good, in spite of everything, and now he's definitely _attached_ to the idea of finding a random person to grill for them through the power of craigslist.

So there's really no point in fighting it.

"Don't put it up until everyone has approved it," she finally settles on, and Monty grins.

"Oh yeah, don't worry. We're going to crowdsource this. It's going to be _awesome_."

"I can't believe you think someone who answers an ad looking for a dad on craigslist is _less_ likely to murder us than our landlord," she grumbles.

"We just have to find the right dad," he tells her. "You'll see."

*

"You gotta put _no daddy kink_ ," says Raven. They've turned the craigslist ad into a drinking game, because that is apparently how it works when you move in with three of your college friends. Anything can and should be a drinking game. This is now the guiding principle of their lives.

"I don't know," says Monty, apparently really thinking the statement over. "It might be one of those _don't think about pink elephants_ things. Invoking daddy kink, even to say we don't want that, might do more harm than good. We don't want to put the thought in anyone's head."

"Yeah," says Jasper. "We should just write the ad so that _no daddy kink_ is implicit throughout."

Clarke frowns at her beer. "Whatever you guys do on the internet is terrifying and I'm not touching it. I think we need to have a minimum requirement for how long they've been a dad. Like--at least eighteen years. Like Monty said, I think we want someone who's empty-nesting, not some new dad who's trying to get away from his family."

"At least eighteen years dad experience," says Monty. 

"They should be able to give dad advice too," Jasper says. "Like, give me the sex talk."

"Definitely don't put that in the ad if you don't want weird sex stuff," Raven says.

"I think just eighteen years' experience as a dad, willing to come over, grill, and be paid in food, beer, and company," Monty says. "I'm putting in that most of our dads are dead or out of the picture so they feel sorry for us. Also we'll play catch with them if they want."

"You guys are going to get stabbed," says Raven. "And then we won't have anyone to pay the rest of the rent."

"If we get stabbed, it's going to be because someone gets past our screening process and we trust them," says Jasper. "So they'll come here and stab all of us, and then no one has to pay rent."

"So it's fine," Monty agrees.

"Fine," Raven repeats, giving Clarke a look, and Clarke shrugs one shoulder, helpless.

"Fine."

*

They get more responses than Clarke was really expecting. She sort of thought there would be two or three obvious trolls and nothing else, but in addition to all the trolls, they get a decent number of emails that seem to come from real dads who are excited about grilling with some random internet people.

"We get to have _interviews_ ," says Jasper, sounding gleeful. "We can have dad fights! Last dad standing wins."

"So, I'm doing the interviews," says Clarke, and Monty and Jasper stare at her. "You guys are going to be weird! If we're having a stranger come over, I'm approving them first. You guys can come to make sure I don't get stabbed."

"Clarke is going to have dad fights," Jasper says.

Monty nods. "She's going to win."

"The new dad is going to be the beta dad," Jasper assures her. "You're the alpha dad, Clarke. Now and forever."

"That's not really what I'm worried about," she says. "I just don't trust you guys to pick someone good."

"You're definitely going to have dad fights," says Raven. She grins. "I'm so in."

"Thursday and Friday afternoon work for you, Clarke? The Starbucks near your office?"

Clarke rubs her face. "Yeah," she says. "After five. Set it up."

*

If you'd asked Clarke to estimate how many dads would be interested in grilling steaks for a bunch of strangers, she definitely would have put the number at less than ten, and probably less than five. But, according to Monty, the post went viral, and he actually _selected_ the ten best candidates, rejecting plenty of hopefuls without even meeting them because of offensive usernames, lack of proper spelling and punctuation, and troubling political opinions unearthed on Facebook searches.

So Clarke is just meeting the cream of the crop, five people per day on Thursday and Friday, for an event on Sunday.

"I can't believe this is working," she mutters to Monty. It's Friday, and while she has a couple candidates who would be fine and definitely not murder them, no one has really leaped out as a frontrunner. It's a thought that makes her feel ludicrous, because it's not as if she would have said she had any particular standards for a grill dad, but now that she's meeting them, she actually does feel like she's hiring for a position. If she has this many choices, she might as well have standards.

"Empty nesting," Monty says. "It's a thing. That was Charles Pike, right?"

"Yeah. Number seven."

"And?"

"He'd be fine. Kind of intense, though. I think he'd scare Jasper."

"That's not the worst thing," says Monty. "Scary dad is an okay vibe. Just three more and then we can go home and drink and argue about which one to invite over."

"It's like I'm on the stupidest dating show ever," says Clarke, and right on cue, someone asks, "Are you Clarke Griffin?"

Clarke hadn't really expected to meet anyone even a little bit attractive at this. After all, anyone with a child over eighteen years old was so far outside of her preferred dating age range that it just felt unrealistic that any DILFs would be involved. Forty was about the youngest she could possibly expect, and a sixteen-year-age difference is enough to kill her attraction, pretty much.

But the guy watching her is really hot, and _way_ too young for this, honestly. He's got messy black hair and thick black glasses, with a smattering of freckles on his face and a scar on his lip. He's wearing a crisp white button-down with the sleeves rolled up and the top two buttons undone, and Clarke's mouth actually goes a little dry.

Mostly from surprise, definitely.

She glances down at the email she has--Bellamy Blake, twenty-one years' experience as a parent, and a high-school teacher on top of that. This guy can't be more than thirty, and could possibly be as young as she is, so--there's no way this is the right guy.

Still, he's here, so she stands automatically and offers her hand. "I'm Clarke, yeah."

"Bellamy Blake," he says. "Nice to meet you."

"You too," she says, and gestures for the seat across from her. She and Monty exchange a look, and then she just asks, "So, you were--six? When you had your first child?"

"Seven," he says, without missing a beat. His expression relaxes into a somewhat sheepish smile. "My little sister. I was only her legal guardian from, uh--when I turned eighteen to when she did, so seven years. But her dad was never in the picture and our mom worked, so I've been taking care of her for as long as I can remember. She's the one who sent me the ad. She saw it on Twitter and said I should try for it because I need more friends."

"So she's twenty-one now?"

"Yeah. She's a junior in college."

"Empty nesting," says Monty, and Bellamy jumps. Apparently he hadn't realized Monty was with her. "Sorry, I'm Monty, I'm here to make sure Clarke doesn't get stabbed. The rest of our housemates are around too."

Bellamy laughs. "Oh good. I'm glad you guys are practicing internet safety. Not to be, uh--I sort of assumed Clarke was a guy's name. Not that guys can't get murdered on craigslist, but--"

Clarke finds herself starting to smile. "That's some pretty good dad friend."

"I try."

"Clarke's our resident dad friend," says Monty. "But she's not allowed to cook, so we need someone else for grilling."

"Speaking of which," says Clarke. "Tell me about your grilling experience."

"I've done a lot of it," he says. "It's easy and I could get grills myself when I was a kid. I couldn't replace our stove without a lot of work, but I found some shitty grill at a yard sale and fixed it up so I could do--" He shifts a little, clearly embarrassed. "When you don't have a lot of money, food's an easy way to celebrate. Burgers were cheap, but my sister loved them. So I could always make it feel like a special occasion."

"Not to totally blow by your touching backstory," says Monty, "but how are your dad jokes?"

"My sense of humor is terrible," he says, instantly. "My entire shtick as a teacher is to make my students think I'm the biggest dork in the world. It seems to be working."

"And you really want to come over to our place and cook meat for a bunch of strangers?" Clarke asks. "What's in this for you?"

"Like I said, my sister says I need more friends. This is my first year teaching out here, so I'm new in town and most of my coworkers are older. I'm friends with one of the English teachers, but he and I just play video games and trash talk each other. And, honestly, I just wanted to see what was going on. Why do you guys want a dad friend to grill for you? You can't pretend I'm the only weird one here."

"Yeah, I guess not," Clarke grants. "We're renting a house, the two of us and two more college friends. Our landlord is weirdly obsessed with grilling."

"He keeps pressuring us to buy meat," Monty says.

"He only made us buy meat once," she corrects, in the interest of fairness. "But now we have a lot of meat and nothing to do with it."

"And instead of telling your landlord that you don't know how to use the grill, you decided to go on craigslist and recruit a stranger to come over and cook for you," he teases. "A strange _dad_ specifically. Yeah, that makes sense."

"It wasn't _my_ idea," Clarke protests.

"It kind of was," says Monty. "You brought up craigslist."

"To sell meat, not to hire a dad!"

"I just improved your idea," says Monty.

Bellamy is smiling a little, watching them. He really _is_ attractive. And, well--Clarke's got a good feeling about him, too. And it's only about thirty-percent bias because he's hot, she's pretty sure. The problem with the fifty- and sixty-something guys that she's been talking to is that even the nice ones, she has no idea how they'd fit in. But she already feels comfortable with Bellamy, can already imagine hanging out while he works the grill, chatting with him and shaking their heads over Jasper and Monty's failed attempts at wholesome outdoor activities.

"How many responses did you get?" Bellamy asks, pulling Clarke from her thoughts.

"Way more than we thought. Monty just brought the ten best in for interviews."

"And I made the list?" 

He sounds kind of proud about it, and Clarke smiles. "You didn't have _Trump 2020_ in your email signature, so--"

"Yeah, that would be a good way to weed people out."

"And I couldn't find you on Facebook to judge your life, so I figured I'd just take a chance," Monty adds.

"Oh, yeah. I don't use my real name on Facebook so students won't find me. Not that I really do much on there, but I don't want them to know about the stuff I'm not doing."

"So you're trying to trick your students into thinking you have an exciting personal life?" Clarke teases.

"Keep up the plausible deniability, yeah."

"I bet they'd be really jealous that you're responding to craigslist ads looking for grill dads."

He ducks his head on a soft laugh. "Yeah, I'm really leading an exciting life."

"You're on summer vacation now?"

"Yeah. I fucking need it, honestly. I love teaching, but--the first year was rough. Next year I'll have my lesson plans to work from, but this year was basically trial by fire."

"So you're telling me you could really use a backyard barbecue and some free beer."

"I really could, yeah."

"Cool. We have a few more interviews to do, but--honestly, not being fifty is probably going to really work in your favor here. I'll email you."

He grins and offers his hand again. "I won't be offended if you go with a real dad. But this way I can tell my sister I tried."

"You met two whole new people," Clarke tells him, shaking. "That's a lot of socialization."

"Yeah, I'm done for the summer." His smile is soft and warm and probably the best smile she's ever seen. "Nice to meet you, Clarke. Monty."

"You too," she says. "Talk to you soon."

Like good friends, Raven and Jasper actually wait until Bellamy is gone to descend on her.

"Was he really a dad?"

"Older brother," says Clarke. "He's using that for dad credit. It checked out."

"He seemed pretty good," Monty offers. "And Clarke wants to make out with him so--"

"Like you didn't want to make out with him," Clarke shoots back. "He was hot, we all want to make out with him."

"He was pretty hot," Jasper agrees. "If I had to pick a dude--"

"So, the first hot guy that shows up and we all decide we don't actually need a dad?"

"He's definitely a dad," Clarke says. "He teaches high school and he's his sister's legal guardian. And I want to make out with him," she adds, in the interest of full disclosure. 

"He'd fit in a lot better than any of the older guys," says Monty.

"But the last ones could still wow me," she adds. "It's not a done deal."

Raven snorts. "You didn't see your face," she says. "Trust me, it's all over."

*

**Me** : My housemate Jasper really, really wanted this text to say "will you be my dad," which is why Jasper isn't allowed to send out these texts  
This is Clarke, by the way

**Bellamy** : I pretty much guessed that, yeah  
But the out of context "will you be my dad" text from an unknown number would have been pretty alarming  
So points for your housemate, I guess  
You want me to come over tomorrow?

**Me** : If you haven't made other plans, yeah

**Bellamy** : Was I not clear enough about how sad my social life is?  
But I did tell my friend Miller about this and he asked if he could come  
He's the English teacher, he doesn't have a social life either

**Me** : Is he going to stab us?

**Bellamy** : Huh  
Good question  
Probably not  
I think he's probably too lazy to murder anyone

**Me** : Then yeah  
The more the merrier  
We really bought a lot of meat  
There was so much peer pressure

**Bellamy** : Cool  
When should I show up?

*

Clarke would say she assumed that the dad cookoff would be a one-time thing, but even that isn't really accurate. She assumed it wouldn't even happen the first time, that the craigslist thing would be a disaster that ended in tears and drinking.

But Bellamy shows up with his friend Miller right on schedule, and it's actually really fun. Miller is quiet and sarcastic, but he spots their gaming systems and that's enough to get him in good with the rest of the house. Clarke zones out their discussion of PC and console gaming and goes to stand with Bellamy by the grill, which is obviously just because she doesn't care about video games and not at all because Bellamy is hot.

He's also an excellent cook, and even though Clarke listens to his explanation of what he's doing, she doesn't really pick up on any of it. She'd like to blame it on general lack of culinary skills, but honestly, about half of it is that Bellamy has incredibly distracting hands, and cooking involves a lot of him telling her to watch what he does, which she can't do if she's also supposed to be listening. 

But it's still fun.

Raven's the one to offer, "Same time next week?" when the evening wraps up, and Bellamy and Miller exchange a look and both shrug.

"I'll cook as much meat as you guys give me," Bellamy says. "I'll even bring some vegetables next time."

And it really is that easy. Clarke and Bellamy are the de facto adults--Team Dad, as Jasper calls them--which means that she's in communication with him _a lot_ , asking him what he wants from the store and if he can cook whichever meat is on sale this week. After a month of that, he finally asks if she just wants him to pick her up so they can go to the store _together_ , and then Miller starts coming over on Thursdays to play Mario Kart, and Bellamy tags along, and by August, they're an actual social group, real _friends_ who do things together without needing an excuse other than wanting to see each other.

It's hard to put her finger on exactly when her attraction to Bellamy turned into a crush, and from a crush into _feelings_ , but by the time she notices, it feels inevitable. He's intelligent and caring, endearingly curmudgeonly, with a sense of humor that's somehow both kind of awful and hilarious to her. He's loyal and warm and kind, and she really never had a chance. She was done from the first time she saw him. 

But she can't help thinking that if she'd noticed the exactly moment of transition, she could have done something. There was a perfect moment for her to tell him, and she missed it, and now she doesn't know what to do.

Her friends are unsympathetic.

"Just tell him," says Raven. "Just be like, hey Bellamy, want to make out, and he'll be all over it. Like, no question."

"I'm using how bad you are at flirting with Bellamy to flirt with Miller," Monty offers. "Like--we just complain about how neither of you is making a move."

"So I shouldn't do anything until you and Miller hook up," says Clarke. "So you guys will still have something to talk about."

Monty rolls his eyes. "Trust me, we can make fun of you if you're dating. We're going to be fine. I'll ask him out in a few weeks, he'll say no or yes, and that's it. You know, like _normal_ people."

"That sounds so boring," Clarke says, and Raven shakes her head.

"I'd say you're lucky he's just as fucking stupid as you are, but really that just means you guys are going to be fifty and still refusing to just fucking _make out_ like you want to," she says. "But whatever. It's not like I'm the one not getting laid."

"You actually aren't getting laid," Clarke points out.

Raven waves her hand. "Yeah, but I'm not getting laid because I don't have any good prospects. _You've_ got a hot guy who looks at you like you're the best thing that's ever happened to him, and you're still not getting laid."

"Yeah," says Jasper. "The rest of us are single because we have to be. Well, and Monty," he adds, with a nod. "He's working on it. You're not even working on it."

"I could be getting laid," Raven adds, in a tone that makes Clarke very wary. She wasn't meaning it as anything but a way to get the conversation away from her and Bellamy, but sometimes Raven takes fairly innocuous statements as fighting words, and it looks like now is one of those times.

"You could," Clarke agrees. "And so could I. I will," she adds, without much conviction. "I'm working on it."

It is, to an extent, true. She's not _not_ working on it. She hangs out with Bellamy more than anyone she doesn't live with, and she's no longer denying that she flirts with him. She even thinks he flirts back. It's just that the next step after flirting is dating, and Clarke's never been good at making the first move. She's been lucky in the starts of her relationships: other people always do the work. 

But the relationships have always gone wrong, so maybe it's a problem. Maybe things would go better, if she started it.

Before she can figure it out, though, Raven makes the first move for her. It's almost September, and Raven announces at their weekly barbecue that they have an issue.

"I invited my boyfriend next week."

"Your boyfriend?" asks Jasper.

"Just because no one else in this house knows how to date doesn't mean I don't."

"So what's the issue?" Bellamy asks, crossing his arms. "Do you think we're going to embarrass you?"

"No, I just accepted that. The problem is you."

"Me?"

"Not Jasper?" Clarke asks. Bellamy definitely isn't their most embarrassing friend. Not even close.

"Hey!" says Jasper, but then he seems to think it over. "Okay, yeah, I guess."

"I'm dating Roan."

"Wait, _Roan_?" asks Monty. "Like, our scary, grill-obsessed landlord?"

"Our _hot_ , scary, grill-obsessed landlord," says Raven. "Yeah."

"What does that have to do with me?" Bellamy asks, but Clarke's got it.

"If we tell him how we met you, we have to admit that we were so embarrassed we couldn't use the grill that we hired a stranger on the internet to do it for us."

"He could probably grill for you," Bellamy says, thoughtful. "He knows how, right? He could take over from me."

"No way," says Clarke. "We're not just going to--he's Raven's _boyfriend_ , he's not replacing you."

"He's Raven's boyfriend," Bellamy shoots back. "You want to lie to him for the rest of their relationship about how you met me?"

"You can just be a friend," she says. "It's not like we have to explain your whole history. All we need is another story of how we met. It's not much of a lie."

"Just say he's your boyfriend," says Raven, because of course that's her plan. It doesn't even make _sense_. It doesn't help.

"That requires exactly as much explanation as him being my friend," says Clarke. "It's basically the same either way."

"I think people actually ask how you met significant others more than they ask about friends," Bellamy adds. "People like _how we met_ stories when you're dating."

Raven shrugs. "And meeting your boyfriend on craigslist is totally normal. Or, hell, online. He might not even ask what site. But you meet a friend online and everyone wants to know if you were on reddit or twitter or what. Online dating makes more sense to people than online friendship."

Everyone else is quiet, watching her and Bellamy like they're the stars of a TV show or something, and Clarke kind of wants to murder them, because it's so _obvious_ , and it doesn't really do anything. She can't pretend to be dating Bellamy until Raven breaks up with Roan. If Raven is really even dating him, which--she probably is, but Clarke honestly wouldn't put it past her to date someone just to prove a point. And fuck with Clarke, while she's at it.

"We'll figure something out," Bellamy says, before Clarke comes up with a response. "Don't worry, I won't tell your landlord that you hired me to be your grill dad on craigslist. I'm pretty sure I can come up with something better. It would be hard to come up with anything worse."

"Sure," says Raven, easy. She's not making eye contact with Clarke. "Just let us know."

She makes herself wait ten minutes before she goes inside to get something from the kitchen. She doesn't know _why_ she's so upset, why she's frustrated and shaking. Raven was trying to _help_. Bellamy certainly doesn't care. She even thinks he might be _interested_ , but for some reason, she's still just--

She washes her face in the sink, takes a few breathes. She just feels _stupid_. It's no one's business but hers, if she gets a boyfriend. Raven didn't have to--

"I can leave."

She startles, turns to see Bellamy hovering in the doorway, his expression torn between concern and embarrassment. He offers a sheepish smile.

"You don't have to leave," Clarke says. "I was just--"

"Taking a break?" he supplies.

"Yeah."

He clears his throat, eyes darting down before he meets hers again. "If you can, uh--if I knew what you were upset about, my life would be a lot better. If it's just, uh--Raven, or what she said, or--" She cocks her head, and he deflates. "If you're really upset about the idea of dating me, you should tell me. So I'll know."

It makes her smile. "No, that's not the bad part. Just--I can do this on my own, you know? I don't need Raven coming in and proving she can get a boyfriend before I can and trying to help with this. We were going to figure this out! I was going to do something! And I was the one who wasn't getting laid, so why does _she_ care that--"

Bellamy's laughing. "Clarke?"

"What?"

"If you don't mind shutting up about how you were going to make a move on your own, I kind of want to kiss you."

That does stop her short, and she lets herself look at him. His smile is still a little rueful, and Clarke laughs. "I _was_ ," she says, crossing the kitchen so she's standing in front of him. He slides his arms around her, leaning in to brush his nose against hers with a smile. "I really was."

"I was too, yeah," he says. "Any day now."

And then he's kissing her, and Clarke has trouble remembering anything else that was bothering her. She has trouble even remembering _being_ bothered.

Bellamy Blake is kissing her, and everything is perfect.

*

"I went too far," Raven says, when Clarke and Bellamy finally rejoin the rest of the group. To her credit, she doesn't even look smug about the fact that her ploy clearly _worked_. "I didn't think it would bug you that much."

"Yeah, I didn't either. I just--I guess I didn't want anyone else getting involved."

Raven nods. "I get that. We cool?"

"Yeah. I know you didn't mean to upset me. I didn't think it would either."

"Good." There's a pause, but she clearly can't resist. "You and Bellamy cool?"

"We're cool."

"Nice." Another pause. "How long before you're calling him _daddy_?"

She groans and elbows her, hard. "I liked it better when you were apologizing."

"Sorry. Just can't wait for you to have to tell everyone how you met."

"Internet. Totally normal." It's Clarke's turn to pause. "You didn't actually seduce our landlord just to fuck with me, did you?"

"Depends. Did you pick Bellamy up on craigslist just because he's hot?"

Clarke finds him at the grill automatically. He's talking to Miller, laughing and smiling, and he _is_ hot. He's always been hot. It's nice, obviously, but--

"No," she says, and means it. "That was just a bonus."

"Same for Roan," she says. "Fucking with you was just a bonus."

That breaks the moment, and Clarke laughs. "Dick."

"Guilty."

"You guys ready to eat?" Bellamy calls. "First come, first served!"

"He really is going to be a great dad," Raven observes. She glances back at Clarke. "Food?"

"Food." And then, once they have their burgers, she can't help adding, "You know, your boyfriend might be right about the whole grilling thing."

Raven laughs. "Yeah. He really might have been."


End file.
